


Once

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Two Monsters In Space And Time [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: (kind of), M/M, Magic, Post Regeneration, Regeneration, Soul Bond, Time - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: In the rarest of cases, two such souls will revolve in orbit of one another for centuries on end, at most touching for a second or passing by each other, until finally they collide in a burst of stardust and certainty, and can never again be truly pried apart.Loki and The Doctor meet once. After that, they meet again, and again, and again.





	Once

**Author's Note:**

> Late-game spoilers for My Stars For An Empire within.

It is sometimes the case that two beings, for whatever reason, are drawn to each other despite the odds of the universe and the laws of time. Sometimes, such beings might brush past each other like ships in the night, their souls for a moment entwined and yet destined never to meet again. At other times, so star-crossed a pair will be united from birth, and will never know the sorrow and heart-ache of parting until Death comes for his toll.

In the rarest of cases, two such souls will revolve in orbit of one another for centuries on end, at most touching for a second or passing by each other, until finally they collide in a burst of stardust and certainty, and can never again be truly pried apart.

** One **

You see him, but it doesn’t matter.

It’s the barest glimpse on the corner of a foreign street as you wear a second skin that is not your own, and you move forwards without another thought.

** Two **

You shake his hand in a crowded throne room, once. His hand is warm, and dry, and you notice how well-kept his fingernails are in comparison to his tousled, bowl-cut hair.

He doesn’t seem to matter.

He doesn’t.

** Three **

He is an old man with glossy, silver hair, and he picks up your coin when you drop it upon the cobbled streets of blue brick. You play the young girl delighted at his charm and chivalry, and you beat at him. As your lost coin is replaced in your small, dark-skinned palm, you find yourself struck by the sadness in his eyes.

** Four **

The scarf is, in many ways, an obscenity.

At its numerous, ridiculous knitted panels, you smile, and when you see it has drawn through the mud on its journey through the villages, you drop to one knee and offer its owner a sweet smile as your seiðr weaves through the dyed wool, drawing the brown stains from their moorings.

Clean, you let the garment go, and you are on your way.

You forget him. He remembers you. You are both still so very young.

** Five **

You see him run by one day, and the fleeting thought lingers in your head – _where is that man going? For what reason does he hurry so?_

You never find out.

** Six **

You sell him an umbrella, each panel brightly coloured, complementing and clashing with his ugly, motley suit in turns. You both have the moment’s suspicion that you have met before, and yet neither of you recognizes the other. You do not, after all, know each other.

You will not for quite some time.

** Seven **

You steal his hat once. You are a child with raven hair and a playsuit of woven leaves, and he doesn’t mind when you hand it back – he laughs, sweetly, like a man with children of his own.

For decades after, you remember the hatted man with the fatherly smile.

** Eight **

You dance together, once, in an old-fashioned dance hall: you recognize his clothes from a long since-past Migardian era. Despite his blue-eyed, soft-featured beauty and his lovely hair, you offer him your hand with the assurance that you will not fall in love with him even if he holds you tightly to him in your dance together.

He laughs, pulls you flush against him, and lays his hand upon your hip.

You cannot help but wonder if he thinks you will love him, but you do not, and you forget him as easily as you forget the dress you wear that night.

He forgets you in kind.

** Nine **

You pass him once, when you are yet young in your Earth skin, and his glance toward you makes you panic.

“Rad jacket, man,” you say, and the American accent and apparent confidence seem to give him pause. He grins, the expression effervescently bright, and he gives you a nod of recognition before you each go on your way.

** Ten **

It’s a simple meeting.

For the first time, you notice him, and he notices you, and rather than parting ways, as so many times you have, you move on together. You realize what he is, and the effect of his wide-reaching legend electrifies and excites you: this is a chance you cannot allow to slip through your fingers.

He runs, and you follow him. You run, and he follows you. For once in your life, being chased does not affect in you a sensation of entrapment.

You laugh, and you draw him into a dance with you one night, and if it feels familiar, neither of you say so – you do not tell him a long, stupid scarf would suit him, or that you can imagine him with curly hair, or that you can imagine him carefully manicuring his nails.

You adore him.

You love him as you’ve loved no other in all your years – you have loved so few, even including your brother, your mother, your children, and yet you’ve never loved in the way you love him: you mirror each other at every turn, and he feels so deeply – and yet you do not find his empathy repulsive.

It is endearing, in fact, in a way that surprises you.

You forget, for a while, that Timelords do not die as men do, and that they do not live as you yourself do.

** Eleven **

You repulse him, and he terrifies you.

He is a storm wrapped in ribbon and soft pastry, heated and cruel in a way that even at your worst, you never were. He is a child, a callous, callous child, and the stars are his playground, and you are nought but an unfavoured toy.

He hurts you, and you let him, until you don’t.

You do not know why.

When you last see him, it is with your hand wrapped tight around his pale throat, threats and barbs upon your tongue that haven’t flourished there in so very, very long.

It hurts you to abandon him, but you will not a place a child who hates you – a child who is not even yours – above an empire.

(You see him just once more: he is broken, and he weeps. Despite yourself, you are as soft and gentle with him as it is possible for you to be.)

** Twelve **

When you see his face, it shocks you.

You had not expected to see him ever again, and you let out so loud a sound one might think you a babe in arms anew: you grin as you come closer, for he feels so different now, and the change is most welcome.

You offer him cocoa when he visits you at work, and he takes it, settles in an armchair you each pretend wasn’t purchased just for his benefit, and he watches you work, pretends not to be entertained by the genius you both know you possess.

You accept his apologies, his age, his tired hands and tired eyes: you entertain his faux-fierce moods, and you love him as deeply and loyally as you are capable. He accepts your chaos, and your fury, and your love.

He does not pick up your pieces when you are broken: he merely watches as you draw yourself together once more. Perhaps this shows your age. Perhaps it shows his.

You confess to him your thousand sins, and confess to him your virtues. He takes your confession with all the quiet comprehension of a priest, and with the careless affection of a distant god.

You have never known a god like him before. You have known so few beings that make you feel so insignificant and so very, very good.

It is a feeling you adore.

You are sure he will outlive you, and for this, you are grateful.

Over your millennia of study, you have learned such tricks, but there are limits to even your talents. You absorb the split of a time rift as a super nova occurs behind it, within it, for the surrounding stars, planets, _galaxies_ , would all die under such helpless heat. You skywalk in the centre of it all, and you draw it within you: stardust runs through your veins, incandescent energy boils your blood, and worst of all is the time energy that digs its way into your skin. It is not your first selfless act, but it is, without a doubt, your last.

He holds you close, uncomprehending, angry and wide-eyed. You feel as if you are the older of the two of you once more – a balance has been restored – and you smile a warm, tired smile.

Even as that desperate, ineffable agony burns through you, exhausting every part of you, you put your fingers upon his temple, and you close your eyes.

You remember that you do not live as Timelords do, and you know that you will not die as you yourself ought.

** Thirteen **

When you wake, gasping and dry-mouthed on the TARDIS floor, you are full to the brim with past lives, and Loki’s form is sprawled, cold and lifeless, before you. You have never seen his eyes look so empty, or his mouth so still.

He would want you to simply cast his body to the passing stars, but he is dead, and you make the decisions now.

You bury him on a hill that overlooks a violent ocean, beneath a field of golden grain: once upon a time, ~~Loki~~ you ran here with your children, the very day before Odin had one of them slaughter the other.

As you grieve for him, for yourself, you grieve through both his eyes and your own.

Rather than parting ways, from here, you move on together.


End file.
